Silencing Machine

The longtime Chicago black metal band get back to basics, eschewing the experimentation of 2010's genre-bending Addicts: Black Meddle, Part II for a hard-hitting, riff-heavy appoach. It suits them.

On Silencing Machine, their sixth album and first since 2010's genre-bending Addicts: Black Meddle, Part II, the longtime Chicago black metal band Nachtmystium have opted for a back-to-basics approach. This is happening at a time when black metal's grown increasingly ambitious and experimental, with bands incorporating styles and sounds that seem natural in 2012 only because borders have grown more porous. But after Addicts, a collection that opened with an industrial-style cheerleader chant and worked through plenty of acid-rock jamming (complete with extended saxophone workouts), stripping things down was the move to make. Addicts featured excellent material alongside some of the band's biggest clunkers.

But Silencing Machine isn't an orthodox record. Early on in his career, Nachtmystium founder, leader, and sole permanent member Blake Judd was clearly very into Darkthrone. Four years after the first Nachtmystium collection, you heard hints of something else on 2004's Eulogy IV EP, but it was 2006's surprisingly psychedelic, e-bow-heavy Instinct: Decay, where he finally showed he had more to offer than black metal by the books. For Silencing Machine, his band returns to the compellingly tweaked black metal foundation of Instinct: Decay with the knowledge they accrued over their more experimental records.

Silencing Machine is Instinct: Decay's next logical step. It's black metal from a group that knowingly references Nine Inch Nails in its album title. As Judd told me when we spoke recently, "I've always been into The Downward Spiral. It's one of those records that has never aged for me... I always liked the lyrics and I thought that line was a particularly sinister one. It was ringing out in my head, and with the industrial influence in the music, I thought it was a perfect title to this record." That, and prior to Silencing Machine's release, the band put out a 7" that includes a B-side cover of Joy Division's "The Eternal" featuring Chris Connelly. The A-side, "As Made", sounded very much like Connelly's old band, Ministry. (It's also worth remembering that Judd also pilots Twilight, the black metal "supergroup" that now features Thurston Moore. This is not your kid brother's kvlt act.)

Silencing Machine is not as immediately exciting as the more colorful strands of the "meddle" stage, but it's a more consistent, cohesive record, one that rewards dozens of closer listens. What we have is black metal wallowing in a dark, swarming, industrial atmosphere. There isn't much pause; it's more seamless. There's no fat, in part because of the sequencing, but also because there's less focus on bells and whistles and more concentration on the songs themselves. Your mind doesn't wander because the compositions don't.

The focus on songs also means more hooks. All the tracks are complex and spacious with multiple parts. The title track features limber, ringing guitars and almost post-punk breakdowns. The bouncy "Decimation, Annihilation" weaves sketchy synth parts into a weirdly ska-esque pulsation. The melancholic keyboards and drum machines that punctuate the sweltering "Reduced to Ashes" reminded me of an upgraded take on old-school USBM like Judas Iscariot. "Borrowed Hope and Broken Dreams" has a bassline reminiscent of Joy Division. "Give Me the Grave" moves with a deathrock feel and a full-on sing-along chorus of "Fall to hell/ Fall to hell." The best song on the album, "The Lepers of Destitution", is an eight-minute epic that has a gentle heart to it somehow; it almost comes off like a ballad, though it sounds nothing like the sort. You'll need to give the album a few listens; the sound is submerged, but hooks and distinct parts emerge, as well as a compelling sequencing. While listening to "I Wait in Hell", I found myself asking if there were horns buried in the mix.

This is also the first album since Instinct: Decay to feature lyrics mostly written by Judd, deepening the connection between the records. For the last couple of releases, the band's honorary member, Dawnbringer mastermind Chris Black, penned most of the words and handled the production. Judd told me that he tends to write wordier lines and therefore sings them differently, and he structures the songs around them in different ways: "I tend to write more lyrics than Chris does, so there's just more vocals in general and more being said."

The current lineup is more stable than any in the band's history. Instead of the makeshift crew he's put together in the past, Judd went into the studio with musicians who've already joined him on stage for hundreds of shows. They're a veteran team in general, their own sort of Chicago supergroup: Producer (and Twilight cohort) Sanford Parker handles synths and electronics, Will Lindsay of Indian (and ex-Wolves in the Throne Room, Middian, etc.) plays bass, Charlie Fell of Lord Mantis, ex-Von, etc., is the drummer, and Drew Markuszewski (aka Avinchi, ex-Von, and a member of Lord Mantis) plays guitar/offers backup vocals. This group congeals and coheres in a way the lineups of the past didn't, and it's the most live and lived-in-sounding record from Nachtmystium to date. You can imagine these songs in a club without triggers and laptops.

There are people doing rawer, more immediate black metal than this, and they're releasing albums that really bleed and feel decidedly underground. Silencing Machine is more than that. This is black metal that feels both raw and accessible, both secure in its genre conventions and happy to fuck with them. It's an impressive and stylish reinvention of an earlier form by a band that could've easily lost the plot, but instead reigned in the excess, and wrote us a new one.